This invention relates to an inventory device which is used to take all the coins out of the coin containing cylinders of an automatic vending machine thereby to determine the number of coins, accordingly the amount of money, which has remained in the coin containing cylinder.
An automatic vending machine is provided with an inventory switch which is operated to dispense all the coins out of its coin containing cylinders to determine the number of coins which have maintained therein. A route-man who wants to receive the coins from the automatic vending machine, depresses the inventory switch to cause the coin containing cylinders to dispense the coins.
In a conventional automatic vending machine, such an inventory switch is provided for each of the coin containing cylinders. For instance, in the case of an automatic vending machine having a plurality of coin containing cylinders such as a 10-yen coin containing cylinder, a 50-yen coin containing cylinder, an auxiliary 10-yen coin containing cylinder and an auxiliary 50-yen coin containing cylinder, all of the inventory switches provided for the coin containing cylinders must be depressed one after another to cause the cylinders to dispense the coins. Accordingly, the operation is troublesome for the route-man. If the automatic vending machine has a number of coin containing cylinders, then he may sometimes forget to depress some of the inventory switches, thus leaving the coins in some of the coin containing cylinders, with the result that he makes an erroneous inventory. In this case, for instance, his account for the amount of money of the coins received from the automatic vending machine will not tally.
Furthermore, the number of inventory switch must be equal to the number of coin containing cylinders, and accordingly the switching mounting space is increased as much; that is, the size of the inventory device is increased as much, with the result that the manufacturing cost is also increased.